


That Awkward Moment When Your Ex Is Captain America

by Innytoes



Category: Leverage, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Eliot Spencer has slept his way across the MCU, Eliot-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Multi, Nazi Punching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23648791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innytoes/pseuds/Innytoes
Summary: Breaking into an office building and finding a basement full of Hydra is annoying enough, but then your ex shows up and your ex is now Captain America? This was not what Eliot expected today, okay. Still, it's nice to see Sam again.
Relationships: Alec Hardison/Parker/Eliot Spencer, pre Sam Wilson/James "Bucky" Barnes, previous Eliot Spencer/Sam Wilson
Comments: 82
Kudos: 515





	That Awkward Moment When Your Ex Is Captain America

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt 'ot3 leverage and sambucky crossing paths when working on the same job'. Listen, this was supposed to be like 500 words but here we are a month later.

“Dammit Hardison!”

Eliot growled it into the comms, softer than he’d like to, which is mostly due to the basement full of nazis in what was supposed to be an abandoned office building. Parker is peeking over his shoulder, assessing the situation. He can almost hear the little cogs in her brain turning, trying to figure out if there was a way past – and he would like to emphasize this one more time – and entire _room_ full of nazis. Ex-SHIELD, by the looks of it, with some former CIA and Green Berets thrown into the mix.

They were at the bottom of some stairs which should have lead down into the standard office building basement with storage rooms and a boiler room and like, hallways with too many boxes and broken office chairs. Instead, it lead to a metal grate platform overlooking a giant room that looked almost comically like one of the secret evil scientist labs from one of Hardison’s stupid science fiction movies. There were actual real-life banners hanging from the ceiling. Something was bubbling sinisterly in the corner.

“Look, how was I supposed to know there was a secret Hydra base in the basement?” Hardison is blathering in his ear, accompanied by the sound of frantic typing. It actually kind of made sense, their client had been worried that her brother had been kidnapped by a cult surrounding this weirdly aggressive health organisation. “Shoot man, they don’t got cameras down there, they don’t put that stuff on the blue prints, okay?”

“Just find us another way to that server room,” he snapped. He didn’t like the look in Parker’s eye. She looked like she was three seconds away from shouting ‘Parkour’ and vaulting over the weird tech and using the Hydra flags hanging from the ceiling to get to where the apparently-not-correct blueprints said the server room was. “We’ll deal with the rest later.”

And by later, he meant ‘get Parker and Hardison far away and then call in some favours to some friends and destroy that basement’. It has been a while since he’d seen Vance and Shelley. And he still owed Melinda a drink.

Eliot was kind of looking forward to it, actually. The last few jobs had been heavy on the grifting and the hacking and low on the punching. He could tell Parker was getting that itch, too, the itch of not being able to do what she loved most, breaking into somewhere impossible. ‘Crossing a room full of Hydra agents unnoticed’ was exactly the kind of crazy stunt she would try because she was bored. He needed a distraction, and fast.

He wasn’t expecting the distraction to be an explosion from the ceiling and a guy dropping through the resulting hole like a ton of bricks, shooting. He turned to shield Parker with his body, but the guy was good, picking his targets even in the chaos.

“Go,” he told Parker. “Get to Hardison.” There was no need to be subtle anymore, considering the newcomers had just blown a giant hole into the ceiling. He was pretty sure they didn’t have to worry about setting off the door alarm anymore. He could hear Parker run up the stairs, updating Hardison as she went. Then, he squared his shoulder and got to work.

The first of the Hydra agents had just reached the metal platform, so he rammed into him, making him fall back down the stairs and knock over three of his buddies on the way down. He wasn’t about to let any one of these goons escape and go after Parker.

He threw the next one who made it to the top of the stairs over the railing, and was trading blows with the one after that when he heard a very distinctive metallic clang. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of red, white, and blue, before his attention was pulled back at the next goon trying to get past him.

Great. Superheroes.

It wasn’t like Eliot disliked superheroes. He grew up playing Captain America with an old frisbee in the back yard like pretty much any other young boy. He may give Hardison a hard time about his fanboying about Tony Stark, but he had to admit the suit was pretty cool. It was just that they had no goddamn tact. Or, apparently, situational awareness, because it took him flinging another goon off the platform and nearly onto Captain America for him to notice there was another friendly up there.

Except… Captain America didn’t have wings.

And he wasn’t usually black.

And he didn’t usually look like his ex.

He’d like to point out that while his surprise got him knocked down, at least he didn’t fly right into one of the pretentious nazi banners hanging from the ceiling.

He could hear his team in one ear, updating him on police response times, the alarms, and that Parker had made it out safe. Above the grunts and cries of the Hydra agents, he could also hear Sam cursing as he untangled himself, and Sam’s partner talking shit as he shot at the goons. They seemed to be going for ‘mostly non-lethal’, if the amount of goons clutching their shattered kneecaps were any indication. He had to admire the technique, really.

He half kept an eye on the fighting down below, Sam zipping overhead. He and his new partner worked well together, even if the amount of bickering would make you think otherwise. But then, Sam always had been a team player, just as much as he’d had a smart mouth.

When the fighting was over, Eliot had a respectable pile of knocked out goons on the platform with him. Only one had made it past to the stairs before being smacked in the head with The Actual Captain America Shield before Eliot could drag him back. Sam had given him a jaunty little salute as though he hadn’t just flown head first into a nazi banner. Same old Sam, then.

His new partner was something else, though. Of course, Eliot recognised the Winter Soldier, it was a very distinctive arm. Hardison had kept obsessive track of the whole ordeal, before the Blip, of course, had combed through Black Widow’s data drop with a fine tooth comb and several homemade algorithms. And of course, Eliot himself had heard… rumours, back before the whole Hydra debacle.

The guy at the bottom of the stairs wasn’t exactly the guy from the grainy security footage Hardison had dug up from the NSA servers and a certain German airport. He seemed a little more like the Bucky Barnes from the old Captain America war propaganda reels Eliot remembers watching in school. Not entirely, of course. There was a darkness in his eyes, a wariness Eliot was intensely familiar with. You didn’t come back the same from certain things. The Winter Soldier looked up, gave a curt nod, and went back to securing the fallen agents, making very sure they weren’t getting up again anytime soon.

Man, Sam really did have a type.

“Hey, man,” Sam greeted him as he came down the stairs from the metal platform, like it was totally normal to run into your ex while taking out a den of nazis. And well, with their lives, this wasn’t the weirdest thing that could happen, Eliot supposed. “You here alone?”

“No,” he answered, shaking the guy’s hand as casually as he could with Captain America’s Shield attached to Sam’s arm with some kind of magnet. “I’m with…”

“Wheeee!” came the sound from the giant hole in the ceiling, and Parker dropped through on one of her rigs. Before he could curse her out for coming back before he gave the all-clear, he heard hurried but slightly more careful footsteps coming down the stairs. Dammit, Hardison.

“Them,” he sighed. He shared a look with the Winter Soldier, who seemed to know something about reckless idiots who were too stubborn for their own good. There was a flash of a smirk before the guy turned away again, casual boot crushing the hand of a Hydra agent that was reaching for some kind of science-y gizmo before whipping out more zip ties.

“Sam, these are my partners, Parker,” he waved a hand at where Parker was clipping herself loose. “And Hardison,” he pointed a thumb over his shoulder, where Hardison was standing at the edge of the metal platform, gaping at the Evil Science Lair. And probably making mental notes on stuff he wanted. Great. Eliot should probably start preparing for a conversation where he vetoed giant banners hanging in the back of the Brewpub. Parker was going to be no help on that front.

“Guys, this is Sam Wilson,” Eliot said. Parker gave a little half-hearted wave in their direction, tasing one of the as-of-yet unrestrained Hydra agents before he could get up fully. She and the Winter Soldier shared a grin, which was frankly a little terrifying, and he passed her some zip-ties. “He’s an old friend.”

“You know the Falcon?” Hardison gasped as he hurried down the stairs, fanboy glee getting the better of him. Eliot wasn’t sure if he was more embarrassed or exasperated, so he settled on a nice medium: giving Hardison as much shit as possible.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to shrug casually like he wasn’t about to blow Hardison’s little geek mind. “We used to date.”

“You _dated_ the Falcon?” Hardison asked, voice going all high and indignant, like he was offended Eliot hadn’t mentioned it before. Which was rude, really, since usually when he mentioned dating someone, they rolled their eyes and Parker called him gross. He couldn’t help it if sometimes he smirked a little at the memories, okay? He’d dated a lot of interesting people. Sometimes in very interesting ways.

Sam had definitely been interesting. Let’s just say it took a lot of core strength and a lot of flexibility to keep those wings up in the air.

“Technically, it’s Captain America now,” Sam offered, waggling the shield on his arm a little. Behind him, the Winter Soldier rolled his eyes.

Hardison, on the other hand, looked as though he was making noises only dogs could hear, pointing at the shield and at Sam and back at the shield.

“Go help Parker secure the scene,” he groused, shoving Hardison away. He kept an eye on him and Parker. “Do not touch the weird bubbly thing in the corner!” he added, hoping Parker wouldn’t take this time to ignore her ear bud. He didn’t need either of them to die in a horrible nazi science accident, or worse, somehow develop super powers. He’d seen the costume designs Hardison pretended not to have on his laptop. He was not wearing that, okay? And capes were impractical.

“I found him!” Parker called from across the room. She was bent over the body of one of the unconscious goons. He didn’t seem to be bleeding anywhere and he still had both his kneecaps, which was a plus on any retrieval job. The obvious concussion was just what you got for being part of Hydra, Eliot figured. “The good news is, the client’s brother wasn’t kidnapped by a health cult.”

“The bad news is, we’ve got to tell our client her brother is a nazi,” Eliot reminded her. Parker gave a little ‘what are you gonna do’ shrug and took out a phone to snap a picture. Their client could probably visit her brother in jail, and they’d be sure to get the contact information off Sam about whatever the hell agency they were working with. Maybe CIA. Or most likely SHIELD.

When they were done with mop up, had given statements to the authorities (after Sam had vouched for them as well as the other way around, because none of them were all too thrilled talking to government agencies), he’d done That Thing With His Eyes to make the guy in the suit stop trying to recruit Hardison, he and Sam held back for a moment.

Parker and Hardison were chatting with the Winter Solider – Bucky, he’d introduced himself – with Parker enthusiastically showing off the taser Hardison had made her. All the news footage in the world couldn’t have prepared him for the sound of the Winter Soldier’s loud laugh as she said something particularly horrifying, if he look on Hardison’s face was anything to go by.

“Should I be worried at how well they’re getting along?” he asked Sam.

“Nah, he’s used to feisty blondes,” Sam commented.

“So are you, if I’ve been following the news right,” he said, before giving a significant look at the shield. He had to quiet down the urge to reach out and touch it. If only because Hardison would be far too jealous Eliot got to touch the shield when he hadn’t and would never let him hear the end of it. “You certainly made an impression.”

Sam gave him that little humble grin of his, the one that would have seemed out of place on a guy as skilled and confident as him, but had just added to his charm. “Yeah, well… I just look really good in red, white, and blue, you know?” Eliot snorted. “Anyway, I never thought I’d see the day of Eliot Spencer working with a team again. You miss me that much you replaced me with a younger model?”

He flushed. Sam had always been perceptive, of course he’d picked up on the fact he and Hardison were dating. “Younger and smarter,” he smirked. “And also a feisty blonde.” Sam raised his eyebrows at him, amused and impressed, and he just gloated a little in silence for a while before returning the awkward to sender. “Anyway, you’re one to talk.”

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“You’re going around with a short, muscular guy with long brown hair,” he nodded over to where for some reason, Parker was hanging off Bucky’s arm by her legs, apparently trying to convince Hardison to add his weight to the arm too. “You just traded in the southern charm for a robot arm.”

“It’s not like that!” Sam quickly interjected. “We’re just co-workers. I don’t even like him that way, he’s a pain in the ass.”

“Man, your bickering is practically foreplay,” Eliot pointed out. He’d been that way with Riley, back in the service, and he’d been that way with Eliot when they’d dated. “Do you even remember how we got together?” They’d been bickering all day, and Sam had called him a pain in the ass, and then five minutes later they’d been making out against the door of Sam’s shitty just-got-out-of-the-army apartment.

There was a moment of silence as Sam either started off into space or took a good look at Bucky for apparently the first time. “Oh shit.”

“Hmm-hmm.”

“Oh shit, oh shit.”

“Yeah, I’m going to leave you to your newfound revelation,” he said, laughing as he watched Sam flush. “Once you two have it figured out… or out of your system, whatever, stop by the Bridgeport Brew Pub in Portland some time, huh?”

“I hate you,” Sam whispered, but his eyes never left Bucky.

“See you around, Sam.” He clapped Sam on the back cheerfully before going to collect his hacker and thief, who were now both hanging from Bucky’s arm laughing. He wasn’t going to say anything else, but he was pretty sure Sam owed him a beer. Or maybe a shot at throwing the shield. That’d be pretty cool.


End file.
